Criminal but Beautiful: A Study on Graffiti and the Role of Value Judgments and Context in Perceiving Disorder

Eur J Crim Policy Res (2016) 22:107125

DOI 10.1007/s10610-015-9288-4

Gabry Vanderveen1 & Gwen van Eijk2

Published online: 10 September 2015# The Author(s) 2015. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com

Keywords Disorder. Graffiti . Micro place . Perceptions . Policy. Value judgment

Annoying paintings everywhere, [it] should be forbidden, and the perpetrators [should] clean everything with a toothbrush. It is pollution. There is an exception, what happens in cities, a boring wall is embellished with a nice painting made by experienced professional artists.

Introduction

The citation above, of a participant in our study who describes his first image of graffiti that comes to mind, summarizes our argument: public opinions on disorder (graffiti, in this case) may vary considerably, not only between people but people themselves make different judgments, depending on what they see in which context. Indeed, studies prove that graffiti has been called everything from urban blight to artistic expression (Gomez 1993: 634). Lombard (2012) calls graffiti art crimes because it is criminal and artistic at the same time, which makes it also difficult to distinguish artists from criminals. Even graffiti writers recognize that graffiti, while for them in the first place art, in some contexts is damaging or inappropriate (Rowe and Hutton 2012). According to Brighenti, graffiti is an interstitial practice: a practice about which different actors hold different conceptions, depending on

* Gwen van [email protected]

Gabry Vanderveen [email protected]

1 Recht op Beeld, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

2 Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology, Leiden Law School, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

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108 G. Vanderveen, G. van Eijk

how it is related to other practices such as art and design (as aesthetic work), criminal law (as vandalism crime), politics (as a message of resistance and liberation), and market (as merchandisable product) (2010: 316). A response to an interstitial practice always comes in a yes, but form: graffiti is crime, or art but it is always also something else (ibid.). Therefore, White (2000: 253) argues, we should not condemn, nor celebrate...